tsquare

So GK is willing to screw the newest SWA pilots... nice culture you have there. I would think it's hardly fair to have the company AND the pilots union ganging up on the new guys. Naaaaaah, the arbitrator won't notice THAT...

SherpaLifter

Not sure how you figure that earnings should have been 5 cents from the AirTran side. The 1 cent figure was for just 2 months of the quarter since the deal closed on 2 May.

Are you saying GK bought AirTran to lose money? I think most people can see the great synergies of the two airlines once combined. GK bought AirTran to make money.

However, until they do combine, AirTran's profits will continue to shrink and here's why. On the day SWA announced they would buy AirTran, business travelers began to book away from AirTran because SWA wasted no time in telling them that AirTran would be completely integrated into SWA and that meant the Business Class seats would be going away. If you are a frequent flyer who values a Business Class seat or loathes the thought of riding the SWA cattle car without an assigned seat, XM radio, and no guarantee of Wifii, you probably don't want to put your miles into AirTran/SWA. If you are in ATL you are now booking Delta. If you are in New York (the number one AirTran market from ATL, you are booking other carriers). Business Class seats at AirTran are now often less than a coach seat on other carriers, especially for short notice travel. As SWA begins to transfer planes and crews over the "fence" to the Southwest side, the AirTran network will shrink and will eventually disappear. During the transition, it's hard to say if it will remain profitable. Chance are it won't because the economies of scale will not be there. It will also make it hard for the bean counters to quantify profit/loss from just the AirTran side as the transition of jets begins because some functions will be supported by SWA and some by AirTran. How do you charge that off to a balance sheet? Don't have a clue. But by the time the transition is complete, I'm confident SWA will be more profitable and growing....even when they pay the AirTran employees the higher wages that come by being on the same team. One Luv baby!

Check Essential

.. <img> .

SherpaLifter

How is the age someone was hired at damaging to SWAPA pilots careers? I'm having a hard time understanding this one.

SWAPA's solution to that was to staple most AirTran FO's and ensure that junior AT capt's would be in the bottom 5% of the combined list for 10 years +. Supposedly this would "balance" the list at some point way down the road....20 or 30 years out. At that point what difference does it make? Isn't everyone on the same team? Besides, compare the Delta list from 10 years ago to the Delta list now. Huge number of names missing. Stuff happens, the world changes, the economy ebbs and flows, companies go into Bankruptcy, merge, pay rates change for better or for worse, etc. But screwing the AirTran pilots out of seniority because their pilots are "disproportionately younger" seems awfully arbitrary and discriminatory. How about the stapled "older" pilots who won't be on the combined list in 5, 10, 20 or 30 years? They never get back to where they were seniority wise at AirTran. In fact, many stapled FO's were close to upgrade in the next few years based on the delivery schedule for new airplanes. Under the proposed SLI deal, their upgrade was pushed back 10 to 20 years or more. Is that fair? I don't think so. Talk about damaging to careers.

And for the record, yes I know they get a pay raise by coming to the SWA list. But that's a given and pay rates come and go. It's the seniority list that outlasts pay increases and decreases; changes in the economy, mergers and acquisitions; war and peace; dogs and cats; life and death, etc. This is a seniority list integration not a W2 integration.

Rolf

Sherpa,

Imagine what the top of the seniority list will look like in 15 years with a relative list. I am sure you understand the reluctance of us to give up any bidding power etc. I understand that you don't either. Our mc guys are still talking so lets see what happens.

V/R

1Seat 1Engine

Pretty simple, I think you're playing coy, but I'll bite.

If I was 22 years old (which I'm not) ever pilot ahead of me on the list that 21 years old or less will not retire before me.

So, if you keep my relative seniority the same but everyone you put in front of me is younger than me, my seniority never moves up by more than it would have prior a "relative SLI" being put in place.

By comparison, the younger groups seniority increases faster because the older group retires quicker.

Now you get it?

One way of thinking about it is that each group brings retirements to the deal. SWA brings a lot more retirements sooner to the deal that AT does.

JohnDeere

Please One Seat, at least pretend this isn't the first seniority list merger in airline history. There are ways to deal with retirements that harms no one, but that doesn't fit the SWAPA paradigm of all Airtran pilots left behind. The arbitrator will know what to do.

1Seat 1Engine

"No two are identical and each turns on it's own facts..." Dana Eischen I believe.

I guarantee you that if this goes to arbitration, that will be one of SWAPAs arguments.

Martin404

Don't you wish SWA would have bought B6. That integration would have been a snap:

Staple, Done.

tsquare

SWAPA: "No two are identical and each turns on it's own facts..."
Arbitrator: And your point is?